ping @alberto @noemi @mao @hugi @johncoate @nadia
The first Creative Bureaucracy Festival took place in Berlin in September 2018 initiated by the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin), with support from other bodies such as OECD, Eurocities, the German Government, NESTA, the Humboldt University of Berlin, The Bertelsmann Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, and many others. For further details see https://en.creativebureaucracy.net (Check out the short video and see the complete list of partners). This festival, first of its kind, was inspired by the work of Charles Landry and various innovators from all levels of the public sector, with the intention of creating an annual meeting point to encourage the exchange of ideas and experience between pioneers and innovators from public administrations globally. The 2018 edition of the Creative Bureaucracy Festival attracted 1200 participants from public bodies at national, regional, municipal and international levels from 21 countries, featured 165 speakers, and included topics varying from sustainability, IT and digitalisation, labour and employment, leadership and management, urban transformation and development to culture, security, education, healthcare, justice and legislation, with over 100 hours of programme taking place on 9 different stages. More than 400 young talent participants (under the age of 30) were attracted, and events included workshops, discussions, awards, parties, and a very popular "Fuck Up Night’ (featuring personal testimonials about the biggest bureaucratic ‘fuckups’. The Berlin event has inspired other cities to organise similar festivals, and these are now being planned in `Brussels, Bergen, Amsterdam, Adelaide and Athens.
I attended a meeting in Bergen at the invitation of the key stakeholders of the Berlin Creative Bureaucracy Festival, including the publisher of Der Tagesspiegel, the main initiator and sponsor, Charles Landry, and others, and was impressed by the commitment and ambition to extend the festival in 2019. I spoke about the proposal developed with UNDP for a Bureaucrat Hackers Fellowships, the UNDP Accelerator Innovation Labs, and my own ideas about creative approaches in the public sector, and how to empower and encourage those bureaucrats and civil servants working at all levels of public administrations. I know there are several people in the Edgeryders community already engaged in such work (and one, Caroline Paulick-Thiel from Politics for Tomorrow, Germany was at the meeting in Bergen).
Edgeryders has now been invited to curate a programme strand for the next Creative Bureaucracy Festival to be held in Berlin 20-22 September 2019. This could take the form of a workshop or panel discussion to share Edgeryders approaches, tools and experience; we could partner with UNDP to develop further the idea of Bureaucracy Hackers Fellowships and use this as a platform to interest potential donors and sponsors (including those already supporting the festival and the large number of Government Innovation Agencies and other networks who will be represented); we might feature individual case studies and work of the Edgeryders community. We would have complete freedom to develop this programme, and would be given the necessary facilities to help achieve this, along with significant marketing/advertising support from the festival organisers.
Would this be of value to Edgeryders? Who in Edgeryders might wish to get involved?
Is a joint UNDP/Edgeryders approach a good idea? Could the Berlin event be another launch pad to promote Edgeryders’ interest in working more closely on public sector projects with municipalities, national governments and international agencies? Who do we know working at any level of public administration (in any country) who is doing pioneering work and who might be featured as a speaker or given an award during the festival (whether or not connected to the Edgeryders community)?
We would need to develop an initial proposal by July. Interest and ideas welcome!